Months after SpaceX were ready for the second test flight of their Starship system the FAA has finally issued the licence for the launch (courtesy of Robert Zimmerman’s superb space watching blog Behind The Black). You can even see outlines for when and where it will happen, since the FAA has to warn aircraft in the area – although the time has since been changed by SpaceX because of problems with the rocket’s grid fins.

The basic flight plan of the test is seen above – and I wonder if it’s a little out of date, given the new stage separation procedures? The booster “lands” in the Gulf of Mexico and Starship itself in the Pacific north of Hawaii. Both vehicles will test their vertical landing capabilities but both will be wrecked, sink to the bottom of the ocean and not recovered. One aspect I don’t see is any warning to aircraft and ships in the Starship landing zone? Outside the FAA’s jurisdiction? In any case I’d expect SpaceX to be pro-active on that one given the downsides (“Starship Crashes on Oil Tanker! News at 6”)

Looks like the new launch window is just 20 minutes, which seems very tight. The FAA licence allowed 2+ hours for the first window! In any case the start is at 7am CST (Central Standard Time) on Saturday, November 18, which is a pain in the butt because that translates to 2am on Sunday, November 19. But I’m up for it.

Streaming starts here 35 minutes before launch and of course on their X site.

Things to watch for in the test, based on the last one:

  • Little or no damage to the launch site. The first test dug a frigging crater under the pad and blew chunks of concrete everywhere. A water-cooled steel blast deflector has been installed.
  • No rocket engines crap out. Several did on the booster, quite obvious to the watching audience.
  • Successful stage separation. Last time they didn’t, which is why the whole thing had to be blown up. This time they’ve changed it to a “hot” separation, meaning that Starship’s rockets ignite before separation. The Russians have been doing that for years and it does increase the payload capacity but it meant changes to the booster to protect the top of it.
  • Both booster and Starship land vertically in the ocean, with Starship having done a sub-orbital flight around most of the planet before hitting the North Pacific.

One of the big jokes in this whole process has been that the FAA, despite issuing orders for 63 fixes to the Starship system, is in no position to know exactly whether they’ve been fixed or not outside of SpaceX telling them so. Unlike with aircraft the FAA simply doesn’t have that knowledge. The even bigger joke was that the US Fish and Wildlife Service got in on the performance because of reports that debris from the last test had fallen on wildlife reserves, so that had to be investigated. The report that F&W completed the other day states:

No debris was found on lands belonging to the refuge itself, but the agency said debris was spread out over 385 acres belonging to SpaceX and Boca Chica State Park. A fire covering 3.5 acres also started south of the pad on state park land, but the Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t state what caused the fire or how long it burned.

There was no evidence, though, that the launch and debris it created harmed wildlife. “At this time, no dead birds or wildlife have been found on refuge-owned or managed lands,” the agency said. [emphasis Zimmerman]

As Zimmerman snarkily notes after seeing that:

Fish and Wildlife had determined [that] in April 2023, only a week after that first test launch.…In other words, the investigation for the past seven months was merely to complete the paperwork, in detail, for these obvious conclusions then.

As a result the space community must be thrilled about the news that the Biden White House proposes major expansion of the regulations governing commercial space. Zimmerman’s link explains the bullshit this will lead to.

Essentially, these new rules — purposely written to be vague — will allow the government to forbid any activity in space by private citizens it chooses to forbid. No private space station could launch without government approval, which will also include the government’s own determination that the station will be operatied safely. Once launched, the vagueness of these regulations will soon allow mission creep so that every new activity in space will soon fall under its review.

Since no one in the government is qualified to supervise things like this, in the end politics and the abuse of power will be the rule.

You think things are bad now, like this six-month gap between tests of a private rocketship? If all this crap goes through it’ll be worse, just when America’s private space industry is really taking off and kicking ass after years of moans about the Chinese beating dinosaurs like United Alliance.